Savings and Loan scandal: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his "dealings" with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.,

An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the ''Essex'' (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville's 1851 novel ''Moby-Dick'' was in part inspired by this story).,